Combined ingot stripper and charger.



- PATENTED SEPT. 3, 1907. J. 0 OROMWELL 6: H. W. LASH. COMBINED INGO'ISTRIPPER AND CHARGER;

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COMBINED INGOT STRIPPER AND CHARGER.

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PATENTED SEPT. 3,1907. J. G. OROMWELL 6: H. W. LASH.

UOMBINED 'INGOT STRIPPER AND CHARGER.

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UNITED sTATEs PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN C. CROMWELL AND HORACE W. LASH, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, ASSIGNORS TOTHE GARRETT-CROMWELL ENGINEERING TION OF OHIO.

COMPANY, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO, A CORPORA- COMBINED INGOT STRIPPER ANDCHARGER.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 3, 1907.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, JOHN C. CROMWELL and Hon- ACE W. LAsH, bothcitizens of the United States, and both residing at Cleveland, in thecounty of Guyahoga and State of Ohio, have invented a certain new anduseful Improvement in Combined Ingot Strippers and Chargers, of whichthe following is a full, clear,

and exact description, reference being had to the ac companyingdrawings.

plexity of motor connection The object of the present invention is toprovide metal handling mechanism which may serve the double purpose ofstripping ingots from their molds and subsequently charging them intothe soaking pit or heating furnace.

Heretofore it has been customary in most steel plants to provide twosets of apparatus for this purpose, requiring two crews of men tooperate them. The use of these two separate and independent pieces ofappa ratus not only is the source of considerable expense, but entailsundesirable necessities in installation. A further and importantobjection to the use of the separate apparatus resides in the fact thatconsiderable time is necessarily lost between the stripping of the ingotfrom the mold and the transfer of the former to the soaking pit, due toshifting the machinery or switching the ingot carrying cars. During thistime the ingots lose a great amount of heat, which is a distinctdisadvantage, as is known to those skilled in the art. It has beenproposed to overcome these defects by the use of new devices in whichgripping jaws used for lifting and charging the ingotsinto the soakingpits are mounted upon or integral. with the stripping tongs. With thesearrangements the gripping attachments must be thrown into and out ofoperation by hand each time they are used, or else the tongs areoperated by a more or less complex mechanism, which must be accuratelyconstructed so as to cause the tongs to approach each other withindifferent limits, according to whether they act as lifting tongs for theingot mold or as gripping jaws for the ingot. We have, however, inventeda combination in which the objections of the double installation areobviated, and which is free from compresent in the double acting tongsjust mentioned.

Referring to the accompanying drawings which illustrate our device,Figure 1 is an end elevation showing a trolley carrying an ingotstripper and a charging device mounted thereon, the trolley being inturn mounted to run transversely of a traveling crane. Fig. 2 is a planview of the trolley carriage on which the ingot stripping and chargingmechanism are mounted. Fig. 3 is a side view of the mechanism showingthe gripping jaws of the charging mechanism lowered to position to graspan ingot.

Referring to Fig. 1, it will be seen that the traveling crane A is ofthe conventional type provided with a motor A for causing it to movebackward and forward across the plant;

Mounted upon the crane is the trolley carriage B having a motor B foreffecting transverse movement,

..under control from the operators platform B-.

At one side of the trolley carriage is mounted an ingot stripper C ofany preferable type,that illustrated being the conventional hydraulicstripper. This stripper has the usual tongs C for catching the ears ofthe ingot mold, and a centrally disposed plunger C for exerting adownward thrust upon the ingot as the tongs are lifted. A drum Copera-ted by an electric motor raises and lowers the stripping mechanismat the will of the operator.

On the opposite side of the trolley carriage, and preferably intransverse alinement with the stripper, is the ingot carrying orcharging device D. This device also has a lifting drum D for raising orlowering it according to the requirements of its use, and is undercontrol in the usual manner so that it is capable of being rotated ineither direction whenever desired. This device does not differ in anyessential particular from those known to the art,the main characteristicbeing that it is so mounted as to be capable of control by the sameoperator controlling the stripper. At the lower end of the charger arethe gripping jaws D by which the ingot is gripped and moved to theheating furnace, after being removed from the mold. It is preferred tohave the charger rigged in transverse alinement with the stripper. Itwill be evident that by this arrangement, after the mold is strippedoff, the trolley may be moved over an adjoining car which receives theempty molds, and brought back to the point where the charger is in exactvertical alinement with the stripped ingot, without any necessity forworking the crane back and forth to secure such vertical alinement. If,however, the stripper and charger were not in transversealinement thedifference between them would have to be made up each time by themovement of the crane.

We propose to install any type of stripper or charging device which wefind desirable for the particular plant in which they are to be placed.It is not the detail structure of either ofthese devices which we desireto claim in this application, but the broad generic idea of having thestripping and charging devices mounted upon the same traveling carriage.As above pointed out, this combination is a distinct and markedimprovement over those installations in which separate machines are usedfor stripping and charging. With our arrangement there is no necessityfor choosing either of the alternatives heretofore presented to theworkmen, of either waiting until the stripper is through its work withone train of cars, and then running thetrain back to a switch where itis transferred to a trackleading under the charger, or, operating thestripper and charger trolleys on the same overhead track, each beingshiited back and forth in turn over the cars. The first alternativeresults in the ingots losing a great quantity of heat before beingtransierred to the soaking pit. The second alternative is absolutelyimpractical in actual work due to the fact that the plant has to beconstructed with the proper amount of extra trackage for the cranes toallow the shifting back and forth, and the further fact that collisionsin such rapid operation are frequent. Again the expense is cut down,obviously, in view of the fact that only half oi-the crew is necessaryfor the operation of our machine.

Our construction presents quite an advantage over those more intricatemachines in which it is designed to have a single set of jaws operatedboth as stripping tongs and grippers for charging the ingots. Theselatter devices are, of course, complex, and, therefore, somewhatexpensive to construct and keep in repair. But a distinct advantage ofour invention is that it permits the use of any type of individualstripper and charging device in common use. In fact with comparativelysmall alterations our machine can be constructed so as to utilize ingotstrippers and chargers which the various plants now have in stock.

Having described our invention, we claim:

1. In combination, a traveling crane supporting a travcling carriage,ingot strippin mechanism and ingot carry ing mechanism supported by saidcarriage, said stripping and carrying mechanisms, being structurallyseparate from each other.

2. In combination, a traveling crane supporting a traveling carriage, aningot stripper and an ingot carrier separately mounted on said carriage.

3. In combination, a traveling crane supporting a traveling carriage, aningot stripper and an ingot carrier separately mounted on said carriagein a line parallel with the direction of travel of one of the abovementioned traveling members.

In testimony whereof, we hereunto afiix our signatures in the presenceof two witnesses.

JOHN C. CROMWELL. HORACE \V. LASII.

Witnesses II. I). SMITH, .I. M. Woomvanri,

